


An Active Imagination

by conceptstage



Series: Single Chapter Critical Role [122]
Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-31
Updated: 2020-01-31
Packaged: 2021-02-25 09:14:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,266
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22493653
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/conceptstage/pseuds/conceptstage
Summary: Jester thinks the bookshop across the street is a front of some kind. It's way more boring than she thought but she strangely doesn't feel disappointed.
Relationships: Jester Lavorre/Beauregard Lionett
Series: Single Chapter Critical Role [122]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1436668
Comments: 2
Kudos: 130





	An Active Imagination

Jester was pretty sure that the owner of the little book shop across the street was using it as a front. Probably for a network of smugglers or costumed vigilanties or something. There were always interesting people hanging around the place, including the human girl who was stacking the shelves and manning the cash register most days.

She was very pretty and she reminded Jester of a character from one of her favorite fantasy novels, maybe she could play the rival love interest or something, the bad girl who tried to lure the heroine into a life of crime and away from her upright upbringing and suitable fiance. She was covered in jade jewelry and face piercings, three in one ear, two in the other ear, and two in her right eyebrow. It would be a fib to pretend that she hadn’t imagined every where the woman could be hiding even more piercings. She was always wearing a sleeveless crop top but sometimes she’d pair it with a badass leather jacket and she had heavy duty black combat boots. She always left the store at crazy times in the middle of the night, sometimes leaving at midnight, sometimes not leaving at all and just staying inside the shop until it was time to flip the ‘OPEN’ sign around.

There was a strange cast of characters always going in and out, besides the customers. Jester had come to memorize the face of them all. There was a half-orc man who always came in around lunchtime at least three times a week and left half an hour later. He was a tall, thin man, always wearing a graphic tee with a sweatshirt hanging open and a pair of ill fitting jeans that had a hole in the knee that didn’t seem like it was done on purpose for fashion reasons.

There was also an older human man with red-brown hair that he would sometimes wear in a bun. He wore a coat that was two sizes too big for him and he often had dirt smeared over his face. He seemed cagey, always looking over his shoulder with his hands shoved into his pockets like he was expecting trouble. Sometimes he was alone, sometimes he had a goblin with him. She was wearing a bright yellow dress with buttons and flowers in her hair and she was holding the human man’s hand and talking to him kindly. She never saw the goblin come to the shop alone, only ever with the human man and they would stay for hours at a time, often only leaving when the bookshop woman locked up the shop long after night had fallen and Jester was leaving for the night.

It was just kind of shady and, most likely, there was probably nothing going on over there at all out of the ordinary. People always told Jester that she had an active imagination.

“What if they’re smugglers?” she asked, watching as the book shop woman struggled to get a crate through the front door of the shop on her own while the half orc watched on and laughed. “What if those crates aren’t full of books at all, what if they’re artifacts!”

Yasha frowned at her from the counter as she finished up her latest flower arrangement. “You think that little, tiny shop is stealing priceless artifacts?”

“Why not? It’s the perfect cover! No one would suspect a little shop to be a major hub of the international artifact trade! Or- Or, maybe they’re not stealing them from people, what if they’re stealing the artifacts from museums and private collections and returning them to their homes? Maybe they’re good guy smugglers who are just super, super shady seeming.”

Yasha placed the final gardenia and then looked over the vase at Jester standing by the window. “You could just go over there and talk to them, you know.”

“What, you think that they’re just gonna tell me about the shady shit they’re probably, most definitely doing over there?”

Yasha shrugged. “Probably not. You could be like a spy, maybe, looking for clues.”

Jester gasped and looked at Yasha with stars in her eyes. “You’re so smart! That’s a great idea!” Jester whipped off her apron and tossed it behind the counter without a care. “Caduceus!” she called through the door that lead into the greenhouse. “I’m going on break really quick!”

Caduceus grunted. “Take your time, kiddo,” he called back just as Jester fled the shop. She waited on the sidewalk in the crisp morning air for a single car to pass by, then jaywalked directly to the front door of Cobalt Bookstore.

It was a charming little place, innocuous and unassuming, made of brick with a large picture window and a faded blue wood door with a little plastic sign nailed to it that read ‘OPEN’ on one side and listed their hours of operation. Through the window Jester could see a little sitting area with a brown-gray couch and a blue and black striped armchair with a brass colored floor lamp between them and a large, full shelf of books behind them blocking view of the rest of the shop.

Jester took a brief moment to glance down the narrow alleyway that separated the bookstore from the electronics shop, which went out of business two months ago and hadn’t been filled yet, on the left and the side of the store that faced the open air, mom-and-pop food market on the right. On the left side there was a large dumpster and a little metal door with an unlocked padlock the size of her fist but the wall on the right side was all brick.

Finally, she pushed open the door and a rustic bell that was hanging over her head dingled. There was no response and no movement inside the shop as Jester looked it over. There were five rows of bookshelves that took up most of the store and that little reading nook by the window looked even smaller from inside. The ceiling was tall and what she thought might have been space for an attic from the outside was actually a vaulted ceiling. She moved passed the shelves and stepped up to the small table that held an old fashioned cash register.

“Hello?” she called.

There was a crash from the door behind the table, which was marked with ‘Employee Only No Entry’ in block letters.

“Shit- Fuck- Fucking lamp- motherfuck-” The door burst open and the bookstore woman stepped out, wiping something dark and splotchy from her hands with a stained rag. “Sorry, I didn’t hear the bell. Can I help you?” Jester got the first good look she’d ever gotten of the bookstore woman. It was different than glancing up while she was manning the cash register and seeing her carrying things into her store from across the street or catching a glimpse of her in the corner of the blurry security tapes.

She was younger than Jester had thought, about her own age, early twenties. She also had a cool undercut that Jester had never noticed previously with the rest of her hair braided and then finished in a top knot near the back of her head. She had the most piercing blue eyes that Jester had ever seen, the color of long walks on the beach and crying at the movies, and they were kind but guarded.

Jester suddenly realized that she was staring when the woman smirked at her and she scrambled to speak. “Hiya! I’m so, so sorry to bother you were you awfully busy? I’m Jester Lavorre, I just started working across the street at the Wild Grove Florists a couple weeks ago.” She pointed at the storefront across the street in case the bookstore woman had never seen it. “And I see you all the time and I just wanted to say hello and introduce myself. What were you doing back there, did I interrupt something super important?”

The bookstore woman just stared at her for a moment before chuckling and reaching out with her now clean hand. “Beau.”

Jester’s face felt flush and she reached out with both hands to grab the one Beau offered her, shaking it enthusiastically. Beau’s hand was calloused and scarred against her soft, well manicured hands. “Hi Beau! It’s very, very nice to meet you. So what were doing back there?”

Beau’s smirk got playful. “Top secret Cobalt business. Very hush-hush, very need-to-know.” She winked.

Jester couldn’t help but smile. “It- I- You really can’t say?”

Beau leaned against the table, then paused and frowned when it wobbled under her weight. She picked up the bad leg of the table and kicked a small block of wood under it before sitting it back down. When the table was more solid, Beau smirked again and leaned against it sensually. “What would you give me for it? It’s very valuable information, you know.”

Jester paused thoughtfully, trying to remember what she had on her right now. She’d left her purse at the shop but she had a ten in her back pocket and whipped it out. “Ten bucks?”

Beau blinked at her in surprise and stood up straight. “I-” She laughed good naturedly. “I was kidding. It’s just the back rooms. Storage and rare books and shit.”

Jester hummed thoughtfully and rocked back and forth on her feet. “Is that all? No, like… priceless artifacts that you’re sending back to their original countries or smuggled goods or anything?”

“Not today.”

The door to the back opened again and the handsome half-orc leaned out. He gave Jester a soft smile and then turned his attention to Beau. “Hey, I’m gonna head out. You gonna be back to the apartment tonight?”

She hummed and nodded. “Yeah, I’m almost done with the Anderson. Could you put on some rice for me?”

“Yeah. See you.” He stepped back into the back and Jester could see through the still open door as he left through the side door. There were also two doors on the right side of the hallway that she could see, both closed. The hall door clattered closed and Jester turned back to Beau’s face.

Jester leaned in close. “Was that your spy informant?”

Beau chuckled and leaned in closer to whisper back. “That was my roommate, Fjord. He’s not supposed to be in the back room, don’t tell my boss. He works on the docks and comes here for lunch otherwise his coworkers steal his food.”

Jester hummed thoughtfully. “What about the redhead and the goblin that come around here all the time? Are they in on this shady business too?’

Beau snorted and turned away to hide her face with her hand. “Fuck. You’re really fucking cute, shit.” She cleared her throat but she was still grinning when she turned back to face Jester. “No, Caleb is a customer. And a good friend, I guess. He always orders these really rare, obscure books that I have to spend literally days hunting for and then he doesn’t even say thank you, he sits his happy ass down in one of those chairs and reads the whole thing like I’m doing this shit for my fucking health.” She gave Jester a conspiratorial look. “That goblin though… she’s real sinister.”

“She looked so sweet though!” Jester gasped.

Beau smirked. “The truth is... She’s a stay at home mother by day and a roller derby superstar by night.”

Jester frowned and stood up straight. “You’re teasing me.”

Beau smirked. “Yep. What exactly makes you think there’s something more going on here?”

Jester sighed. “Well, now I just feel silly. You just… you seemed so cool and all your friends seemed kind of out of place for, like, a little run down, kind of boring bookstore.”

Beau laughed in surprise. “Hold on, hold on. Are you saying that you thought I was breaking the law because I’m not boring enough to run a bookstore?”

“Well… kinda.” Beau opened her mouth to respond but Jester hurried to expand on her theory. “And- And! And you’re always here so late. I have to watch the security videos every morning to make sure nothing weird happened while we were closed and I can see your door in the videos and sometimes I notice that you don’t even leave at all. Not that I’m watching for you because that would be creepy, I just notice it, is all.”

Beau raised an eyebrow and her crooked smile was, unfortunately, extremely charming. “Honestly, I’m really not that interesting. I’m here late most nights repairing and rebinding shitty old books or scouring a bunch of databases looking for whatever obscure bullshit that Caleb wants this week. I wish I was as cool as you seem to think I am.”

The bell over the door rang out when the door opened and Jester glanced back over her shoulder as Yasha stepped inside, bending down slightly to avoid hitting her head. “Sorry. Jester, Caduceus was worried you’d been hit by a car.”

Jester gasped. “Oh, my break has been over for so long! I have to get back!”

Beau chuckled and grinned. “Well, you can come by and interrogate me whenever you want.”

Jester bit her lip and gave Beau a shy smile. “I will definitely take you up on that, so be prepared.”

Beau smirked and winked at her. Jester felt heat rising up in her cheeks. “I look forward to it,” Beau said with a teasing edge. Jester cleared her throat and scurried out after Yasha onto the sidewalk.


End file.
